November 12, 2013 AT 10:00 am

Adafruit Holiday Gift Guide 2013: Clocks and Watches

Alfred Einstein once famously said, “Time is an illusion.” We here at Adafruit are ready to make your illusion into a reality with our clocks and watches gift guide. A time honored tradition, our gift guides will do all the planning for you so you can spend your holidays relaxing. It’s about time you give the gift of time to those you love spending time with. Start planning out those gifts early and you won’t spend the time leading up to the holidays worrying about finding the time to get gifts! Enough with the puns. Onward!

Available At Adafruit

The Bulbdial Clock kit is based on an original design concept from IronicSans.com and developed at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. It works like an indoor sundial, but with three shadows of different length. You tell the time just like you do on a normal clock, by reading the positions of the hour, minute, and second hands. The bulbdial we are carrying comes with red, green and blue LEDs for the ‘hands’, a black/smoke laser-cut enclosure and a wall adapter. Basic electronic soldering skill is required, and you will need to provide basic soldering tools: a soldering iron + solder and small wire clippers. You will also need internet access to read or download our detailed assembly guide. No additional knowledge of electronics is presumed or required. Easy “through-hole” construction and clear, photo-heavy instructions are provided. Read More.

Completely open source hardware and software, ready to be hacked and modded!

Complete kit comes with a 110/220V 9VDC power supply (a $1 plug adapter from your local hardware store will allow it to be used worldwide), all components including PCB, vacuum fluorescent tube, backup battery and a clear acrylic enclosure. Assembly is required! This kit is made of through-hole components but is best built by someone with previous soldering experience as there are many parts and steps. Read More.

Solder:Time Desk Clock: Make a sleek full featured, conversation starting desk clock. The Solder Time Desk Clock (STDC) is a DIY soldering kit. You only need to provide some basic electronics tools; Solder iron, solder, screwdriver, some fine grit sandpaper and wire snips. We’ve pre-programmed the chip, so it’s ready to roll once assembled.

Itching to hack in some custom code or hardware? Bring it on! Designed with hack-a-bility in mind, the STDC is based on the same ATMega microprocessor used in the Arduino products. There are extra digital and analog pins broken-out, an open serial port as well as I2C all easily accessible within the case, as well as an integrated prototyping area on-board. Download the sketch from our web page, modify it, add extra hardware if that’s your thing, and WOW your friends (or the Internet) with your amazing add-ons. Read More.

FLORA NeoGeo Watch: Make your own LED timepiece! Use FLORA and its GPS module to tell time with a NeoPixel Ring. A leather cuff holds the circuit and hides the battery. The watch is chunky but still looks and feels great on tiny wrists!

The circuit sandwich becomes the face of the watch, and you’ll use a tactile switch to make a mode selector. The watch has timekeeping (one LED for hours and one for minutes), GPS navigation (customize your waypoint in the provided Arduino sketch), and compass modes. Read More.

These big 18-segment alphanumeric LED displays are notoriously difficult to drive– there are 54 LED elements inside each LED character and the different segments take different amounts of current. We’ve now made it easy to drive five at a time, and wrapped it all up in neat package with classic alarm-clock styling.

Gifts From Other Sites

ClockOS: Make a custom clock with this sleek open-source clock face. Made with 180 RGB LEDs and a computer that keeps track of time and sequencing. Beautiful, hackable, and customizable, this is a great gift for all your DIY design-geek friends! Read more.

E-Ink Watch from Central Standard Timing: These watches won’t be available until around Feburary but they would make an awesome gift for those people who don’t mind their gifts taking a little extra time (wink wink). This recently funded kickstarter project has so many cool features including a 10 minute charge time and a paper-thin battery. Pre-Order Now!

Founded in 1979 by a team that included Tibor Kalman, a celebrated designer whose work is represented in the Museum’s collection, M&Co. is known for pushing the envelope with its functional, witty, and whimsical designs. This clock features only one numeral, which for many is the most important hour: 5 o’clock, signaling the end of the workday. The clock features a plastic face and case and quartz movement. One AA battery included.

Present Time Karlsson DIY Cubic Wall Clock: DIY in the easiest sense of the word, this clock is ready for you to arrange its colors in any pattern you’d like! Simply place the main cube at a central point and arrange the other cubes around it in any shape or color pattern your heart desires. The cubes come with an adhesive film on the back so there’s no nail needed! Just stick ‘em to the wall in your favorite shape. Read More.

Defusable Clock Kit from nootropic design: This dangerous looking clock kit is actually just a fully functional alarm clock. The kit only costs $32.95 so it’s a great bargain!

The Defusable Clock kit is an electronics kit that lets you build a scary looking clock that you can actually “defuse”. Only the electronics are included — you use your imagination to build the device you want! You can get ideas from the gallery of defusable clocks.

The Defusable Clock is a fully-functional alarm clock just like you’d expect (a normal beeping alarm, snooze alarm, etc.). But at any time you can press the big red button to start a scary countdown sequence exactly like bombs in Hollywood movies.

There are 4 wires across the top of the clock. You have 10 seconds to choose the correct wire to cut: one wire stops the countdown and saves the day, two have no effect, and one will “detonate” the device immediately. These role of each wire is randomly assigned when the detonate button is pressed, so it’s a new challenge every time.

United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority (USA orders): Place orders by Friday – December 13, 2013 – Arrive by 12/24/2012 or sooner.

USPS First class mail international (International orders): Place orders by Friday – November 22, 2013. Can take up to 30 days ore more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2013 or sooner, but not a trackable service cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/24/13.

USPS Express mail international(International orders): Place orders by Friday – December 13, 2013. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2013 or sooner.